Europe, education and open geodata

Education and Culture Working GroupCouncil of Europe, Strasbourg: 22 January 2013

Europe, education and open geodata

Digital Agenda (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/)

Pillar I: Digital Single Market Pillar II: Interoperability & Standards Pillar III: Trust & Security Pillar IV: Fast and ultra-fast Internet access Pillar V: Research and innovation Pillar VI: Enhancing digital literacy, skills

and inclusion Pillar VII: ICT-enabled benefits for EU society

Digital Agenda target areas (https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/)DG Education and Culture

“New skills, New jobs”

initiative

Capacity for change: sustainable implementation and progressive scaling up (of ICT-enabled innovative learning environments) EC Joint Research Centre (2012)

Europe needs to scale up its educational uses of ICT

European Commission research

Creative classrooms

JRC (2012) "Challenges of implementing Creative Classrooms practices”, http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/EAP/documents/_6_Etwinning_WS1_March2012.pdf, eTwinning conference, Tampere Finland

Creative classroom concept

Sharing geographic data across borders is a key European policy:◦collaboratively manage resources, ◦create fairer (transparent) governance structures and

◦contribute to each others' economic prosperity.

Open data

Report on the potential of mapping software to empower consumers http://t.co/L25kIxlT

INSPIRE - Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe - an EU Directive ◦ European governments work together to design

common legislative standards that will allow, or oblige, national agencies to co-operate

Aim to create a common framework for European spatial data

Now free data access across Europe – many countries still slow to develop this

INSPIRE Directive

Europe OpenGeoData platform http://epsiplatform.eu/content/open-geodata

12th December 2011 - Mrs Kroes, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda announced a new Open Data Strategy for Europe, she said:“The best way to get value from data is to give it away.” “Instead of needing complicated authorisation you will be automatically allowed to reuse the public data you need.”“Fees will be limited to marginal cost.” “I also say to private business – open your data”

Open data – recent news

Should provide political and economic decision-takers and scientists with reliable data for assessing environmental conditions across the whole of Europe◦ UK - http://data.gov.uk/◦ IT - http://www.dati.piemonte.it◦ FR - http://opendata.paris.fr, http://www.data.gouv.fr/

Dutch government released core data sets to the public free of charge for re-use, from January 1st 2012 NL - http://www.data.overheid.nl

Finnish government opened up all its data for free re-use from May 1st 2012

Other countries? Regions?

Open data

Sept 12, 2012 - Neelie Kroes speech European Commission’s ongoing commitment to

policies, projects and funding to support open data and open access – 4 features:

1. EU proposed new legislation to open up public sector information◦ Businesses and citizens can access and use this

resource◦ The scope also includes cultural institutions◦ EC putting its own data on a single online portal, with

free and easy access◦ could generate economic gains around €40 billion a year

Open data – recent news

2. developments in cultural open data ◦ EU promotes

Europeana as the access point for Europe’s libraries, museums, galleries and archives

◦ metadata for over 20 million exhibits in the public domain

Open data headlines

Europeana http://www.europeana.eu

Europeana http://www.europeana.eu

Europeana http://www.europeana.eu

3. Open collaborative science ◦Propose to make available, under open

access, all publications that stem from EU-funded research

◦Open access to the data from scientific experiments and studies

4. support research related to open data ◦€45 million for open access infrastructures

for science

Open data headlines

European portal

EPSI Opendata Platform http://epsiplatform.eu/content/open-geodata

European societal challenges ◦ CORINE (Coordination of Information on the

Environment) project ◦ ‘Global Monitoring for Environment and Security'

(GMES) – 2004◦ INSPIRE Directive - 2007

Open governance – new opportunities for citizens to interact

Open data – freedom of information (Neelie Kroes, 2011; 2012)

Europe 2020 - Education & Training 2020

European dimensionThe need for geographic

information is transforming

Europe

What about education?

USA data: http://www.onetonline.org/find/quick?s=geospatial

No defined geospatial workforceEstimated 50,000 jobs in

the geospatial industry

cannot be filled in Europe.

Industry growth at 7-10%

per annum

Little or no research on the

geospatial workforce in

Europe – a few countries

starting to react (Belgium,

Estonia, Finland)

Digital-earth.eu

Integrate Digital Earth in the Digital Agenda for Europe

Infrastructure issues: soft- hardware, data Low knowledge of teachers, low confidence No time in the curriculum, curriculum too full Not in teacher training curriculum Decision makers unaware of importance No guidelines what students should be able to do

(Needs Analysis, digital-earth.eu Project, 2011)

Needs Analysis: Main issues

Not many teachers involvedToo few young people with the necessary awareness, skills, knowledge and experience

1. Support education and training ◦ continuity for digital-earth products

2. Research – Think Tank◦ White Paper/Book◦ Report on innovative pilots ◦ Produce a ‘high growth industry’ profile ◦ Develop indicators on geospatial status

3. Establish an expert group◦Advise EC and bring agencies together

4. Launch event (Digital Earth summit)◦ industry meets education meets policy makers

Pilot project “Integrating DE”

Simplifying the publication of data and maps

http://tinyurl.com/c2avu7h

Geo-services

Each producer creates maps and publishes services and metadata when they want

Can publish and reference own maps and services in their blog, web site, social networking

Can re-use one another’s available layers, including backgrounds / base maps

Now ArcGIS Online et al.

“It’s fine to have geo-data, metadata, technology, top-class methods. But are all the considered people ready to use it really?”

Specific geoinformation knowledge is important …. geointelligence, geo-thinking …

quality and qualification of Human Resources will determine its use ….

any tool is better maintained, and utilizable, when its user is well trained ….

Should we not focus more on education and edification while developing the wider SDI concept?…. Jiri Hiess, LinkedIn, 12/11/2012

Conclusion … from LinkedIn Nov 2012

Strong EU commitment Driven by the Digital Agenda for Europe

Little or no focus on education Infrastructure increasingly in place EU data coming online – EEA- EyeonEarth

Market-driven initiatives (Cloud)

Conclusions